Portland, Oregon is occupied territory. It was invaded years ago by a non-native species of political animal from back east who took over our political and cultural institutions in order to try out their utopian socialist dreams on our great state.
This blog will chronicle the insurgency that is trying to free Oregon from the occupiers' grip by shining a bright light on their most egregious schemes.

Friday, January 08, 2010

Yet another fake business organization

The interesting thing about the left in Oregon is that they can't concede that there is another side to political debate. Maybe it's a by-product of being a one-party state. But for some reason, in Oregon, the left isn't satisfied with the usual panoply of left-leaning interest groups and advocacy organizations.

No, in Oregon, the left wants to dominate BOTH sides of the debate, so they create a bunch of phony advocacy groups whose name sounds as if they would advocate for the private sector, but who actually just push for the same old stuff that the rest of the left-establishment wants.

For instance, the Oregon Business Association. It was founded in the early 2000's, and it has supported every tax increase since. It doesn't even have the guts to oppose the current measures. Its chief is a former Democrat legislator, Ryan Deckert, who has never had a real job in the private sector in his adult life, much less ever run a business.

The media in Oregon plays along, of course, and writes about the Oregon Business Association as if it is a real business advocacy group. I will never forget a meeting I was in about a year ago, where Deckert described OBA's top issues as "global warming and sustainability."

The political strategy I guess is a good one. If you have a group that presents itself as pro-business but constantly advocates for the public sector's needs, as long as the media doesn't call you out, you can do a lot to diffuse the message and impact of the ACTUAL pro-business advocates.

Apparently the left isn't satisfied, however, with just having the OBA (and to some extent also the Oregon Business Council) acting as their Potemkin Villages. They have now created yet ANOTHER pro-government "business advocate."

It is called the Oregon Small Business Council.

A couple nights ago I saw a news story on one of the local networks breathlessly reporting that the Oregon Small Business Council supports Measures 66 and 67. They interviewed the owner of the Paloma dancewear store, and he explained how small business benefits from higher taxes.

I wondered who the heck this outfit was. I pay a lot of attention to the Oregon political/business scene, and I had never heard of them. So I did a little digging.

Sure enough, a brand new organization. They have a very basic blog web site, and here is their facebook page. I paged through the "fans" list, and it is all the usual Democrats and lefties, including Jack Roberts, whose claim that he is a Republican is more suspect every day.

It looks like this pretend organization got started in October 2009! I would be shocked if the seed funds didn't originate in the pro-tax campaign. The web site says it is a "project of Oregon Action and the Main Street Alliance." Oregon Action is also brand new, and looks to be primarily a government health care advocacy astroturf non-profit. Main Street Alliance is about a year old, and is a coalition of local chapters pushing, again, for government health care.

So one of our local network news outfits buys the con hook line and sinker, and gives this fake business group prime time coverage because a "business advocate" is supporting the higher taxes.

And then today I open up the Oregonian and see an op-ed piece from the "Executive Director" of the Oregon Small Business Council, Andrew Plambeck. The piece is all about how we should "buy local," since we are Oregon and we can choose to not be a part of the globa economy.

So I looked into this guy Plambeck. Heck, the leader of a major Oregon business advocacy organization must have some pretty substantial bonafides, right? I mean, heck, the Oregonian is prominently presenting his opinions as speaking for small business in Oregon.

After he graduated from U of O (in June of 2009!) he spent 4 months as the Climate Policy Intern for the Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon Interfaith Network for Earth Concerns before taking over the helm at the Oregon Small Business Council!

Wow! We haven't seen this level of talent leading Oregon's business community since the OBC tapped that titan of industry Ryan Deckert!

This is just so typically Oregon. Another phony business group, and the mainstream media plays along, elevates these pretenders to a status where the general public finds them indistuishable from the real business voices (such as they are) in Oregon.

So the left invades both sides of the debate, occupies both territories.

The media doesn't want Oregon to make a recovery. It wants us to become dependent on the wackos who are running this state into the ground. The media is willing to turn the other way while false organizations get into costume and then praise their awful act. It's so glaringly sideways.

As far as I'm concerned, we have a far better leg to stand on than, well, you. We have more than 400 small business owners signed on and are the only statewide small business organization with actual small business owners on the board.

We're not phony; we're built on the simple fact that well-paid lobbyists at NFIB and AOI don't speak for all business. In fact, that's been a pretty big driving force in business owners looking to build this organization.

Too true. Completely fake, wishful thinking, whatever you want to call it. Never run a business. Big business bad, small business good. Their priorities seem to be spending more for education, spending more for healthcare, spending more for energy and spending more for taxes and government. woohoo!

That's a pretty good one, there, Andrew. So you have 400 small business owners in your group?

How many of those businesses rely on state or local government? I'd venture a guess that it's the majority of them.

So, fine, call yourself the Oregon Small Government Contractor Council. That would be accurate, and it would be then entirely appropriate for such an organization to have a recent college grad global warming activist at the helm.

Andrew really is young. Boards are not made up of lobbyists...unless it is an association of lobbyists. I can not think of any board that I have ever sat on that had a lobbyist on it. Boards are mostly made up of members of the organization. Lobbyists are employed by Boards to get their message out.

One question to the ask the kid is how much are the dues? How much funding is not dues related? Do they publish a list of members? Where and how often do they meet? Who is on their board? One of my companies is in several green, sustainable organizations that cost nothing to be on. There is no down side and there is no time commitment...so it is really an effective organization?

Also what serious business association has a kid running it? Someone with no business or life experience. Andrew, go earn some gray hair and get some skin in the game if you want to be taken seriously.

This charge from the lefty loon about the NFIB-Oregon Board of Directors is false. I've met with the NFIB board. They are ALL small business owners. They have ONE lobbyist as far as I am aware. She's not a board member.

It is really amusing to see how badly the left fakes being business savvy. They put a completely wet-behind-the-ears youngster up as a business leader, who then goes happily about his business of proving, by his own comments on local blogs, that he is uniquely ill-qualified for the position.

Nice job Andrew! (And really nice job to the SEIU or the Our Oregon folks, or whoever it is who is providing the funds for this front group.)

I guess you fooled the Oregonian, so I guess you got that going for you.

Well, I for one don't see any problem with a coalition of business associations, each association represented on the board by that association's lobbyist.

Seems like a pretty logical structure for a business group to me. Why is this "board of lobbyists" some kind of bad thing compared to other business groups that have board made up of their member companies?

Both are perfectly legitimate structures. I don't know why you would try to denigrate this kind of board, Andrew.

My problem with your entity is

1)I suspect it was funded and formed at the behest of the usual groups in Oregon that advocate for a bigger public sector. If I am wrong about this I am more than willing to be proven wrong - just disclose your sources of funding, your member list, and how much of your budget is covered by dues from businesses.

2)It has existed for three months. No track record of anything at all. Almost certainly just a grass-tops deal, gone as soon as the issue is over.

3) I am sure you are a perfectly intelligent person, but you aren't a business leader. No legitimate business organization, just like Dan Yates says, would have a 22 year old with zero experience at the head. Nobody but the gullible mainstream media types will take you seriously.

I'm looking forward to hearing from this groups' grand plans for reducing unemployment and to help current member businesses grow so their increased profits will result in higher tax revenues to help the states budget crisis.

Not going to happen.

I'm pretty confident this organization will disappear once the election is past.

Seriously Andrew, what qualifies you to be on any type of business council, if not a front for a political action committee? Have you ever had to make payroll? Ever worked with a tax attorney? Ever managed inventory, or a media buy? I mean four months as an intern? You have got to be joking.

And do you ever wonder why state government grows every year regardless of the economic climate? Do you think any business (or a family, for that matter) could follow that model?

Truth is, you have no idea how businesses operate in the real world. And it's laughable the Oregonian would legitimize a person like you.

The real question is why isn't the State forcing this group to change their name rather than using an already existing legitimate council's name? The Oregon Small Business Advisory Council has been around for about 20 years. It is a true advocacy group to the Governor and Legislation, not a front for another unknown group Main Street Alliance. The real council has worked hard for a very long time to give bipartisan input to the Governor and Legislation. Thier efforts have been injustly damaged by this political front. I am sure any business facing such abuse of their name would fight to protect it.